The Burlington Eagles and the Burlington Lions-Optimist
Minor Hockey Association (BLOMHA) will be working together to operate
tryouts and form teams at the youngest age groups as a collaborative effort.
The Burlington Eagles have been involved in representative hockey in Ontario for over 35 years. Starting out as the Burlington Wolves and changing to the Eagles in the 1997, they have been the biggest provider of rep hockey in Burlington and belong to the Ontario Minor Hockey Association (OMHA). The Eagles offer representative hockey for the three highest categories at each age level (AAA, AA, and A) starting at Under 10 (2012 born) to Under 18 (2004/05 born). Under the new Hockey Canada pathway there will be no AAA/AA/A categories for the Under 8 and 9 divisions, but rather all representative hockey in those divisions will be called MD Rep (Minor Development) running through a tiered system from “Tier 1” through to House League. At Under 8 and 9 the Eagles will be running MD teams in the tiered system.
BLOMHA was formed in 1951 and currently offers hockey programs in three streams: Rep MD, House League SELECT, and House League and they belong to ALLIANCE Hockey. BLOMHA has continually offered minor hockey programming to the largest amount of kids in Burlington each season and has approximately 1800 registered players across the three streams while using a volunteer network of around 500 people. BLOMHA programming starts with the Initiation Program for 4–7-year-olds and continues through to U19 for high school students.
Please see the following changes to how the two organizations will work with each other starting with the 2021-22 season:
Under 7
All registration will be done through BLOMHA, with an option to receive updates regarding the Jr Eagles program. Jr Eagles registration will be available at a later date, and the player MUST be registered with BLOMHA Under 7 programming to be eligible for the Jr Eagles program.
Under 8+9
The evaluation phase for this age group starts on September 13th and will be conducted by both the Eagles and BLOMHA concurrently. All evaluation registration will be done through the Eagles. The Eagles will have four teams at U8 and three teams at U9, while BLOMHA will have two teams at each age division.
Under 10 & Older
For all older age groups, BLOMHA MD Head Coaches will be active during the Eagles AA and A evaluations. This season all players on Bulldogs MD teams also have the potential to be an Affiliate Player for an Eagles A team, allowing them to be called up to practices throughout the season and potentially games when needed.
Registration for Eagles evaluations for Under 8 through to Under 21 will open June 1st at 12:00pm and will be $75. There will be a late fee of $50 applied for any registration that is completed on August 16th or later. The link to register for tryouts will be available on the Eagles website and social media once active.
To check out the Eagles and Bulldogs coaches named for the 2021-22 season, click on these links:
Eagles U14-18 AAA Coaches
Eagles U10-13 AAA Coaches
Eagles AA + A Coaches
Bulldogs MD Coaches
OHF Seasonal Structure